Thursday, April 6, 2017

Is Moscow TV Really Going to Devote More Attention to Domestic Affairs? Probably Not

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 6 – For some time,
Russians have complained that Moscow television spends too much time covering
foreign news and too little domestic affairs, even though surveys show that the
population in fact prefers the often more dramatic stories from abroad than the
most complicated domestic ones.

As a result, there have been period
reports based on leaks that the Kremlin is about to change the balance given
that Russians are trusting and watching central television less often than they
did and that television remains the Kremlin’s most important means to shape
public opinion (iarex.ru/articles/53847.html).

Yesterday, RBC reported that one of
its sources near the Presidential Administration, unnamed in the story, had
told the news service that officials there believe “television must devote more
attention to domestic problems and not foreign policy,” especially in the
run-up to the presidential election (rbc.ru/politics/05/04/2017/58e404049a79479fb5283155?from=main).

The problem is that while foreign
news can be presented as a struggle of good and evil between Russia and Putin, on
the one hand, and nefarious forces in the West, on the other; but domestic news
often doesn’t have the same simple emotional message and hence the same political
impact.

And because that is so, Sergey
Markov, a Moscow political commentator, says he has strong doubts that the
Kremlin will change the content of Russian television in this way because to do
so could end up benefitting the Russian opposition in at least two ways (svpressa.ru/society/article/169881/).

On the one hand,
greater coverage of domestic issues could drive down the share of Russians who rely
on television thus limiting the power of a tool Putin has used with such
success. And on the other, that change could raise questions about what Moscow
is doing at home, something less emotionally charged but likely to lead to
questions about Kremlin policies.